The Balance (First Draft | Discontinued)

Chapter 18 (Morana)

Morana stood in the front of the church, twelve shrouds laid out at her feet. Vladěna. Pavel. Radovan. Dobromila. Drahoslav. Jiřina. Kamil. Liběna. Bohumila. Bořek. Přemysl. Janek. She whispered their names, and back to her, they called, Weak. Failure. Traitor. The words rang out like the peals of a church bell, and she looked down at her boots, a lump in her throat and tears welling in her eyes.

At her boots, which were slowly being surrounded with an oozing puddle of red. Morana shrieked and fell backward, heart hammering in her throat. She scrambled away from the shrouds, but the blood seemed to follow her, trickling along the mortar between the stones in the floor.

Weak. Failure. Traitor. The voices were rasping, thick, wet: darkening lines ran across the throats of the corpses. She screamed again, a raw, broken sound that tore from her own throat and echoed throughout the church. Then the collar of her uniform tightened and she felt rough, calloused fingers against the nape of her neck.

Clawing at her collar, she writhed and thrashed in her attacker's grip, trying to get a glimpse. She threw an elbow back desperately, but hit nothing. Her uniform collar felt like an iron band, digging into soft, vulnerable flesh, and she gagged. Frantically, she kicked out, foot grazing the side of her attacker's leg.

Let me go, let me go, let me go—

With a low snarl, her attacker jerked her back and slammed her against the wall. What little breath was left in her lungs burst out in one harsh gasp— not only from the impact, but also because she recognized the man.

There was Aleksander, teeth bared in a wolf's grin, grey eyes filled with the determination to finish what he had started. Morana stood stock-still, as if a bullet had just torn through her stomach. Her breathing was ragged and loud. Her legs shook like a green soldier's. But she didn't dare run.

How did he get here? The thought was a dim pulse in the back of her mind, almost lost behind the numbness.

Weak, the voices taunted in response. Failure. Traitor.

She shook her head. "I'm not. I'm not."

Head tilted, Aleksander rested his thumb in the hollow of her throat and pressed down. Now each lungful of air came with a price, with a burn like kerosene set aflame, and every attempted breath hitched before she could take it in.

"You're not what?" he said, his voice as rough as a mountain crag. "Not a coward? You ran."

And let Rovnováže condemn her, but that was all she wanted to do now. Run and run and run until she could no longer feel the phantom pressure of his fingers on her, until those eyes no longer seared into her skin. But his thumb only pressed down harder; her lungs were screaming as loudly as her mind and the whole church reverberated with the sound.

Weak. Failure. Traitor.

Morana's thoughts trickled sluggishly through her head, deafened by the noise. She didn't have it in her to fight any more— to move, even— and the only thing she could focus on was the way the light filtered through the glass and shone on Aleksander's face, turning one eye a blazing, feral yellow.

He leaned closer, until his mouth was almost touching her ear. "Weak," he whispered, breath stirring her hair. "Failure. Traitor."

Morana bolted upright with her sheet twisted around her neck, chest heaving and cheeks damp. Her eyes darted around the room, taking in walls covered by maps, icons, and the flag, taking in the polished desk in the corner and the wood slats of the bed below her— not the church at all.